That’s the motto of my campaign. That’s what I believe is the winning strategy for Liberal America to defeat this destructive — evil — force that’s taken over the political right.

And, I’m thinking that what Governor McAuliffe is doing is what that motto looks like, when it’s played out in the budget battles of Virginia.

Glad to have McAuliffe’s kind of pugnacity in the Governor’s chair when the Republicans are making war for this disreputable purpose in this disgraceful way.

We need Democrats who are fighters– and who understand where the opportunities are to defeat this destructive force that’s made the Republican Party so ugly in our times.

I hope that he will fight by picking up the mirror and use this episode to expose the ugliness of what the Republicans have been doing on this expansion of Medicaid issue. Including the perhaps criminal deal for Puckett’s seat.

See the evil– and show it to the people of Virginia. These Republicans have behaved in an ugly fashion, from beginning to end. They are a microcosm of the persistently destructive force that’s taken over the Republican Party.

Governor McAuliffe has the opportunity to expose this part of that ugly picture. It is his best way to fight the battle that’s already at hand, as he has rightly chosen not to surrender. (This is like Obama and the debt ceiling crisis this last time, and we all remember how the Republicans got creamed on that one.)

Governor McAuliffe has stood his ground, and now we must encourage him to press the battle.

I’d say to him: Offense, not defense. Don’t expend great energy on defending yourself against their charges. Brush those quickly aside as nonsense and hypocrisy and pour your energy into an attack on what it is that they have shown themselves to be.

That truth is their greatest vulnerability.

It is only by fraud that these “conservative” and “Christian” Republicans get the credibility they need to wreak their damage on our society.

See the evil. Call it out. Press the battle. Take their power from them.

Sadly, the people who most need the assistance of Medicaid expansion live in SW Virginia, where people reflexively vote for the GOP and against their own self-interest. The greatest percentage of Virginians needing this assistance live in the deepest red of red districts. That said, I’m proud to have voted for Terry McAuliffe.

Jim B

After reading the article in the Wash Post this morning about those people in the SW claiming for one that they were scared of Obamacare. I was of a mind to say screw them, but the Governor is a bigger person than that.

Andy Schmookler

… even Virginians who don’t recognize who their real enemies (and friends) are, there is also here a battleground on which to fight the larger war.

Each issue is connected to the larger pattern: the Republicans are consistent in taking whatever problems America faces and doing their utmost to prevent anything being done to solve them.

That’s what they’re doing on immigration, on guns, on climate change, etc.

And that’s what, at the Virginia level, the Republicans are doing about the problem of 400,000 Virginia citizens who lack reliable access to the health care they need. Why should our fellow Americans be the only citizens of an advanced democracy who has that kind of exposure, vulnerability, and dangerous insecurity about basic health care?

So whether or not McAuliffe’s heart is with the people, he’s got a place here to make a stand and fight it out before the court of public opinion. I’ve seen McAuliffe in operation as a speaker on three different occasions, the most stunning of which was as the major speaker at the 2012 Virginia Democratic convention, where he showed that the man has it in him to be a powerful force.

He has what too few Democrats have– a relish for the confrontation. It may come to pass that the Republicans chose the wrong Democrat to pick this kind of fight with.

I certainly hope McAuliffe can make that so.

aprilmoore

Excellent piece! Go, Terry! Standing up to the Republicans’ shameful action is just what Virginians need. Thanks!